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Barley Custard
2 heaping tablespoonfuls (2 ozs.) "Patent" barley 1 pint (2 cups) milk I heaping tablespoonful (I oz.) sugar 1 tablespoonful butter Pinch of salt 1 pint (2 cups) milk 2 eggs ½ teaspoonful nutmeg extract Put the barley and the sugar into a saucepan, add the butter, salt, and milk; mix thoroughly and stir it over the fire till it boils; then add the eggs well beaten, and the nutmeg extract.
Pour into a buttered fireproof dish and bake for a quarter of an hour in a moderate oven.
A stovetop-thickened barley custard, finished briefly in the oven. Two things need sorting before you start: the milk is printed twice, and the eggs will scramble if you are careless.
- The duplicated milkThe ingredient list gives "1 pint (2 cups) milk" twice, almost certainly a typesetting repeat. Two ounces of barley flour will not carry a full quart to a custard consistency; use 1 pint (2 cups) total.
- "Patent" barleyA finely milled barley flour sold in tins under names like Robinson's Patent Barley, marketed for invalids and infants. Plain barley flour is the direct replacement; do not use pearl barley or barley flakes, which will not thicken smoothly.
- The hinge: adding the eggsThe barley mixture has just boiled. Take it off the heat, let it drop below a simmer, then whisk a ladleful into the beaten eggs before returning them to the pan. Beaten eggs poured straight into a boiling starch base curdle immediately.
- Nutmeg extractA flavouring essence, generally alcohol-based, now rarely stocked. A scant 1/4 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg is a reasonable stand-in; 1 1/2 teaspoons of a modern nutmeg concentrate would almost certainly be overwhelming.
- Oven temperatureA moderate oven is usually taken as about 350F (175C), though period usage covers roughly 325-375F.
- The bakeA quarter hour is enough only because the custard is already thick and hot from the pan; the oven is there to set the surface and colour it. Judge by a just-set centre rather than the clock, and give it another five to ten minutes if it still ripples.
- "Fireproof dish"Period fireproof wares included glazed earthenware and heat-resistant glass, some of which could take direct heat as well as the oven. Any 1-quart baking dish works here, since the cooking is done before it goes in.
- YieldAbout 1 1/4 pints (2 1/2 cups) of finished custard on the single-pint reading, serving three or four.
Patent barley belongs to the long tradition of invalid and nursery cookery, where cereal flours were boiled with milk into something thought both nourishing and easy on the stomach; barley water and barley gruel had been standard sickroom fare in English households for centuries before the tinned, pre-milled versions appeared in the nineteenth century. Turning that gruel into a baked custard with eggs, sugar and nutmeg moves it from medicine to pudding, which is roughly what a general cookbook of this period was for.